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Eric Carle

This will be a post without a picture because I would never ever dream of breaking the copyrights of Eric Carle. He is BY FAR my favorite artist, writer, and illustrator. You may be familiar with his work. Two of my favorites are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you Hear? and The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

I was moved by this part of his autobiography in The Art of Eric Carle.

In 1935 I started school in Syracuse. I remember vividly a sun-filled room, large sheets of paper, colorful paints, and fat brushes. One day my mother was asked to see the teacher. Convinced that her son had misbehaved – why else would a parent be asked to come to the school? – she was immensely relieved to be told that her boy not only enjoyed drawing and painting but that he was good at it. It was impressed upon my mother that from now on she was to encourage and nurture this talent. This was advice she would honor for the rest of her life.

It struck me as I kept reading how this small experience of a teacher praising a talent in Kindergarten, totally and completely shaped the work of Eric Carle. His mother always encouraged him from that time forward and Eric remembered this as his initial moment of feeling talented.

I want to be the person who inspires others. I want to motivate by compliment. I want someone to do something great because I took a moment to notice something small. And what if I can multiply that by 100? And what if I multiplied that every day? And what if we all just tried to look for the good in each other? Would we all live a life that felt as nice and as happy and uplifting as any page of any book of Eric Carle?

what a great post and some of the best is to start with the people who love us at our worst! It's always so easy to think of others outside of our family. Loved this post. It was very motivational to me!